How to teach quality commenting Kathleen teaches commenting skills through: Modelling and composing comments together with students on the interactive whiteboard. Teaching students about the “letter” format and editing process during writing lessons. Giving examples of a poor/high quality comments and having students vote whether the comment should be accepted or rejected. Example of a Sorting blog comments activity devised for our students here. Having students read and comment on a post on our blog as part of a literacy rotation on the computer each week. Taking students to the ICT room once a week to work on composing a quality comment with a partner. Emailing parents and encouraging them to write comments on the blog with their child.

Activities for developing student commenting skills

own or facilitate a collaborative discussion with students to create together (you could include this video as part of the process). Develop a quality comment evaluation guide.  Refer to Linda Yollis’s Learning how to comment. Write a blog post about commenting and what you define as a quality comment. Have your students practise leaving a “quality” comment on the post.

Create a commenting guideline poster (see poster example below) – develop your

“quality” comment on the post.

Create a commenting guideline for your blog.  Here’s an example.